"There is much salvation in some mistakes," said Schmidt smiling.
Just then we were stopped by two middle-aged Friends in drab of orthodox tint, from which now-a-days Friends have much fallen away into gay browns and blacks. They asked a question or two about an insurance on one of our ships; and then the elder said, "Thee hand seems bleeding, friend Richard;" which was true: he had cut his knuckles on his opponent's teeth, and around them had wrapped hastily a handkerchief which showed stains of blood here and there.
"Ach!" said Schmidt, hastening to save his friend annoyance. "He ran against something.—And how late is it! Let us go."
But Wholesome, who would have no man lie ever so little for his benefit, said quietly, "I hurt it knocking a man down;" and now for the first time to-day I observed the old amused look steal over his handsome face and set it a-twitching with some sense of humor as he saw the shock which went over the faces of the two elders when we bade them good-morning and turned away.
Wholesome walked on ahead quickly, and as it seemed plain that he would be alone, we dropped behind.
"What is all this?" said I. "Does a man grieve thus because he chastises a scoundrel?"
"No," said Schmidt. "The Friend Wholesome was, as you may never yet know, an officer of the navy, and when your war being done he comes here. There is a beautiful woman whom he must fall to loving, and this with some men being a grave disorder, he must go and spoil a good natural man with the clothes of a Quaker, seeing that what the woman did was good in his sight."
"But," said I, "I don't understand."
"No," said he; "yet you have read of Eve and Adam. Sometimes they give us good apples and sometimes bad. This was a russet, as it were, and at times the apple disagrees with him for that with the new apple he got not a new stomach."
I laughed a little, but said, "This is not all. There was something between him and the man he struck which we do not yet know. Did you see him?"